13 comments:

It is good to see that you have managed to resume your site so soon after the Hotfile closure. I have downloaded your splendid edition of the Sinfonietta quickly via Mega. A grand performance in wonderful sound.My best wishes for the future..and the continuing availability of your archive via a reliable download service.

Well my first-ever CD-RW transfer (of the Ansermet 'Boutique') left me disappointed - I felt it was 'constrained' and the few commercial CD's I have 'never seem to get loud': Weird

Playing this through the computer - via MediaPlayer or Steinberg WaveLab (which is used to make the 24/96) versus the same LP being played 'live' - it has the same 'constrained' sound (lacking in micro-dynamics/light-and-shade'freedom')..so the only successful transfers seem to be of old 78 material (LP or direct transfer) - but this end-result leaves me 'uninvolved'.

I'll try a few more experiments (maybe use one of my myriad MD./CD Recorders as an A/D convertor and output the digital signal to the soundcard) and I've checked various soundcard settngs -which appear correct...but it shows how 'debased' things have become since Digital: BBC Radio 3, for many years, is useless for Music - as it's so bloody boring to listen-to.

I've always been intrigued by 'Sinfonietta', and in particular with how the many differing interpretations of it... er.. differ (I know what I mean). Anyway this is a lovely lively edition without the playing going postal (a constant danger with this piece I find).

I must say that the file sounds great to my ears, but then again I'm in my mid-fifties and I was brought up on Dansette players as the pinnacle of transcription technology. So possibly hi-fi subtleties are beyond my ken. So having bowed before greater authority on this issue, I thorougly recommend the FLAC file played as loudly as possible. I also find great merit in the piece currently as background music for skewering 'pigs in blankets' to at this time of the year!

I tend to be a bit 'hard' on my transfers - as (reading others' accounts/claims of digital transfers) I would expect 'what goes in' to be 'what comes out' -but I'm less than convinced; however each CD/MD recorder, etc, that I have will give 'a different impression - so I just aim to be as non-interventionist as possible.

I'd likely have some difficulty correctly identifying the differing Sinfonietta performances on LP: my first was bought in 1972; Ozawa/Chicago c/w Lutoslawski - HMV ASD 2652) but this is the oldest (Kubelik/VPO is next- on Decca 10") - but I really should've also uploaded the 1962-ish Ancerl/Czech PO - as the LP contains Taras Bulba (the Huybrecht/LPO Decca coupling).

Probably beside the point but I think 'expectations' of equipment is the problem in a nutshell. There's always something coming along that whips the living **** out of the thing that came along last week, and it hardly ever does. I find myself drowning in advertising reviews and hype (and to be honest being terrified of looking an idiot when my ears disagree with either). I recall one of my friends paying £££ on interconnects many moons ago, and I honestly couldn't tell the difference between those oxygen-free directional chanted-over-by-monks doobries and the simple copper flex supplied initially with his system. Personally, if I had paid that kind of money I'd have sobbed for a month.

I don't invalidate anyone's genuine feelings and opinion, but maybe I'm getting a little too cynical to spare more patience than neccesary with it. I freely admit that I've degenerated into the kind of aural simpleton that most hi-fi folks despise but my philosophy now is if it sounds okay, don't look the gift horse in the mouth: Comparsions for me usually either end in tears or feelings of profound awkwardness.

Probably not your ideal audience am I? Sorry.

The above notwithstanding, if you ever upload the Ancerl/Czech PO material I for one will consume it with gratitude.

The Slavicky is fine - but this was a Janacek compilation of some scarcer items - the Ancerl/Slavicky is anyway on CD - Bakala (as with Chalabala/Vogel, etc,) is more 'Historical' interest..and tend to become unavailable..or never issued.